Amplitude-modulated pulses based phase-sensitive OTDR in distributed sensing

Abstract

The detected frequency response range of phase-sensitive optical time domain reflectometry is limited by the sensing fiber length. In this paper, we demonstrate an amplitude modulated pulses based phase-sensitive OTDR to detect vibrations with high spatial resolution and wide frequency response range. The amplitude modulated pulses consisting of narrow pulses and background light are injected into the sensing fiber as probe light. The Rayleigh backscattering generated by the background light interferes at the detection end, presenting a phase sensitive response to external vibrations. The Rayleigh backscattering of narrow pulses are tracked to locate vibrations. The frequency information is obtained from the frequency domain analysis of the interference signal. The system can realize high frequency response with low repetition rate of probe pulses by one-end detection.